World Focus from Brussels

The Global Organized Crime Index 2023 reveals a widening gap between organized crime and our collective resilience efforts. A new edition of the index has been launched by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and the results highlight the urgent need for informed, practical strategies to combat organized crime globally. The index profiles all 193 member states of the United Nations, by providing a criminality and resilience score for each of them. In this episode I speak with two analysts from the GI index team, Kosyo Ivanov  and Chiara Gentili about the main findings and the methodology behind the index.  For full disclosure, I was one of more than 400 experts worldwide who contributed to the index. You can find it here: https://ocindex.net/

Brussels has a very lively art gallery scene and a thriving market for art that is internationally recognized. This week, from 21 to 24 September, 70 galleries and jewellers take part in the annual Brussels Art Square in the Sablon neighbourhood. World Focus from Brussels visits one of art dealers taking part, Jonathan Kugel, in his gallery in the heart of Sablon. We discuss the importance of Brussels Art Square, the market for art in general, how to be aware of forgeries and how the business of art is evolving – becoming more digital but at the same time holding on to personal face to face relationships.

Slovaks go to the polls on 30 September to select a new parliament. The election campaign takes place in a volatile political environment where disinformation has been rampant and rivals fight bitterly. The elections are also closely watched because the results might decide whether Slovakia changes course in it’s support for Ukraine, which until now has been robust. On the other hand, Former Prime Minister and front-runner in the elections, Robert Fico, says Slovakia will stop sending arms and ammunition to Ukraine if voters return him to power. That must be a cause of concern for Slovakia’s Allies in NATO and also within the European Union. In this episode I interview Katarina Klingova, an expert at the GLOBESEC think tank in Bratislava,  about politics in her home country, how disinformation is affecting the society and what can be done to counter malign actors in the information space. 
See also GLOBSEC - including GLOBSEC trends report
https://www.globsec.org/

Ukraine is united in fending off the full-scale invasion by Russia and liberate all occupied territories. In this episode I interview Oleksiy Goncharenko a member of the Ukrainian parliament who took up arms along with his colleagues following the invasion on 24. February 2022. He represents Odesa, the biggest city in the south of Ukraine, on the coast of the Black Sea  and a key hub for exports. We met at the NATO Public Forum on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Vilnius on 11 and 12 July.

Sports is a huge global business, one example is English football where billionaires and oil-rich countries have been making big investments.  In this episode  I speak with Kaspars Gorkšs, former professional footballer from Latvia,  In addition to playing for domestic clubs and his national team, Kaspars had a successful 10 years career in England, joining clubs such as Queens Park Rangers and Reading. We spoke about sports and business, a subject of a panel where he was one of the participants at the Lampa conversation festival in the Latvian town of Cēsis I also asked Kaspars about the ice-hockey fever hitting Latvians during the recent World Cup and how the national basketball men’s team will do in the upcoming World Cup finals in Indonesia this August.

Reporters and journalists in Ukraine face a challenging task in reporting on the horrific war brought on by the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Russia into the country on 24 February 2022. In this episode I speak to Latvian TV-reporter Gints Amoliņš who has been reporting from the frontlines and telling other stories related to war to his domestic audience. I met Gints on the 10 of June, at the Lampa conversation festival in the town of Cēsīs, few days after he returned home for a break. We discussed what it is like working in a war-zone and the importance of keeping the world informed about the war to sustain support for Ukraine in this existential fight.

Ukrainians are united in fighting the Russian invading forces on the battlefield but also in the information space. In this episode I speak to Dmytro Pleshakov, a young Ukrainian tech entrepreneur who was a speaker at the Riga StratCom dialogue on 7-8 June.  Like millions of his fellow citizens Dmytro decided to help his government in the war effort, contributing his professional skills and knowledge. We discuss how to tell the story of Ukraine to the world and effectively counter the flood of disinformation from the enemy. 

Finland has joined NATO becoming the thirty first member of the Alliance. This is a historic  change for a country that for a long time was militarily non-aligned, charting a tricky path as a next door neighbor to Russia.  However the  full-scale invasion by Russia into Ukraine on 24. February 2022 has totally changed the security landscape in Europe, eventually leading to the Finnish flag to be raised at NATO HQ in Brussels on 4. April , the founding day of the Alliance. I speak to Dr. Iro Särkkä an expert on defence and security, including Finnish foreign policy and NATO, at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. We discuss how joining NATO is a major step, what Finland brings to the Alliance,  the shared security interests of the Nordic and Baltic countries and much more.

The war in Ukraine rages on, more than one year after the full-scale invasion of Russia into the country on 24 February 2022. The invaders were met with fierce resistance by the Armed Forces of Ukraine that have demonstrated war fighting skills and bravery. Ukraine has also received massive military and humanitarian support from the West. The scale of death and destruction is unspeakable and there seems no end in sight. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine,  said in a speech on 24 February this year that the invaders would be held accountable for their crimes and he was sure that Ukraine would win the war.  I speak at length with Toms Rostoks, a Latvian expert on defence and security. We dive into  the situation on the battlefield, the geopolitical context of the war and also what is at stake for Latvia and its neighbours in the Baltic region.

Ten men are now on trial in Brussels, for their involvement in the terrorist attacks in the capital of Belgium on 22 March 2016. 32 people were killed and hundreds more wounded when the perpetrators detonated their bombs  in the Maalbeek metro station and at Zaventem airport. In this episode I speak with Dr. Thomas Renard, a Belgian who is the Director of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in the Hague https://icct.nl/  Dr. Renard, a leading expert on counter-terrorism, talks about the massive trial underway in Brussels but also how the threat of terrorism has evolved in the broader context and the need for authorities to stay vigilant.